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Buying Albums, Discovering Music: Iain Mahanty, Kids In Glass Houses

For the Kids In Glass Houses guitarist Iain Mahanty everyday is like Record Store Day!

Music and record shopping go hand in hand don’t they? I don’t think there’s anything quite like sifting through the stacks of your local record store, looking to pick up something new. Or heading to a second hand shop to beef up your catalogue. Or even hitting up a few charity shops for some mariachi Christmas music. Either way I love the look, smell, feel and sound of a record. My record shopping has taken me to some great places and given me some great times. From the early years of Spillers Records in Cardiff (the oldest record store in the world) to the most extensively stocked record store I’ve ever seen, Time Bomb in Osaka Japan.

Spillers was where I first started buying music for myself. The synopsis written on the front of the photocopied sleeves would usually determine what i asked to try out on the listening posts. It would then obviously lead to me buying everything I asked to try. I think it’s a fundamental of a record shopping experience when you’re younger and starting to find out what music you like. I find it a far more romantic way to start falling in love with record and still do it to this day. It’s seems a lot less cheap than a quick stream, or an illegal download (which I’ve been told on several occasions is “trying before you buy” pfft!). This quickly led to buying records by bands thanked in the thank you sections of albums I loved, or buying records because of what label they were on.

Time Bomb in Osaka was a record buyer's dream. I’ve never seen such an extensive collection of records and such a detailed system for categorizing genres. They even had test presses of records for sale. I managed to pick up a Black Flag 3” CD. They covered every base, every genre. I think if you were looking for something, they would have it or know where you could find it.

In The Record Palace in Amsterdam, when enquiring about some Small Faces records, our tour manager and myself were told that Paul Weller had been in town a few nights before and bought all the records worth having. Whether it’s true or not, I’m not sure, I like the idea of it though and the bloke that owned the shop was a really interesting character all the same.

The afternoon has completely disappeared now. Whilst sporadically typing this I’ve listened to; Cold Cave - Cherish The Light Years (picked up at a show), The Undertones - S/T (picked up at Bang vintage shop in Belfast with some record bins upstairs) and Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town (picked up in Accord, Copenhagen). I’ve loved every minute.